Searcy, AR

Privacy is such a big deal now and I have no real problems with it unless you have a relative in the hospital and the hospital denies that they have the patient because of "privacy" issues. My child or my parent (if they were still alive) could be hospitalized in another state and I'd be unable to get information about them unless the patient gave permission. If comatose, it's kinda hard to give permission.

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But let's go back a few years. Here in Searcy Arkansas there was a different rule. If you were in the hospital, the newspaper printed it! They also printed it when you were released. If you didn't want it printed, you had to request that they NOT print it.

I, being a forward thinker, never liked this. For one thing, if a friend was reported in the hospital, I felt guilty if I didn't go visit or send a card or flowers. And if I were in the hospital, I didn't need friendly visits; I needed peace and quiet. PLUS, you never look your best in a hospital situation so why have visitors!!

Why did I keep this newspaper all these years? Because it had big news in it, mainly the Junior High School being burned down. This paper was March 18, 1980.

There were two or three other things of interest in this paper which I may blog later but what grieved me was that in this paper, I was in the real estate ads. I was a brand new agent. And the sad part is that I was the only one in this paper who remains in real estate. Some are dead and others just never stuck with it.

Careers in real estate can be long and rewarding or short and unproductive and I guess I'm glad that my name still appears in the paper under real estate and that hospital news is not reported anymore.

One interesting side-note about hospital news is that budding sales agents could go calling on hospital patients. They were there because the hospital invited visiting and if you were in sales, it was good business to let those patients know you cared. One car dealer I know did a lot of hospital visiting!! And he had a great car business! Smart man.

When you feel adventurous now and dig into old drawers or cubby-holes you have a new goal!

Blog fodder!!

Goodness!! Look what I found!! I gotta show this to my Activerain friends.

So look what I found!

This old sheet out of a note pad was probably a give-away in 1948!! And look at the picture. The priority at that time may have been baseball instead of today's passion sport of football!

Of importance to me, however, is this. There is no 8th Street in Searcy Arkansas. It has somehow and somewhere been changed to some other name. There is definitely no Ramsey Printing and there is no phone number in the entire world now that would be Phone 170!!

Some cards come in the mail and they're so pretty and on such high quality paper that we just can't help but look at them and admire.

Here's one. Searcy Arkansas has a newly built nursing home. It is located at 2500 East Moore. For all you Searcy history lovers it is located on the old golf course and right at the Llama Drive entry into River Oaks Subdivision.

The open house is Thursday, Sept 10 from 2-6 pm. Here's the architectural rendering that is on the card. A drive-by indicates it is just this fine looking!

OMG! I'll bet they only sent these to Seniors. They're looking for business. OMG!!

I love this painting! I bought it at an auction and it is life-sized.

It made me think of the old Virginia Slims posters that said, "We've come a long way, Baby!"

She now hangs on my wall in the bedroom. She is so big there's no room for anything else on the wall.

On the back there is a signature and a gift note saying something like To My Dear Friend________.

I was surprised to find that this person was famous, a big star!

Out of curiosity, however, I'd like to know if the masses, meaning some of you in Activerain, would remember who this is.

It reminded me that we need to get rid of our Elvis items at premium prices now before no one remembers who Elvis was.

My daughter called tonight at just about dinner time. I think she knew it was dinner time and was calling to interrupt in order to make a complaint.

"How come you didn't call me this weekend!?"

"Well, was I supposed to call you this weekend?"

You ALWAYS call me on the weekend, usually on Sunday!" was her tart replay. She followed with, "You always used to call on the weekend because it was cheaper, don't you remember?"

Oh, yes!! I remember! Rates were cheaper on weekends, nights and holidays. They were so much cheaper that everyone made the family calls at that time. If you received a family member's call during the week you had this feeling of dread.

Somebody died! Somebody got hurt! It has to be bad news!

The landline was the only phone and it was connected to a solid that was cumbersome to carry around. I bought 25' cords to attach to the mouthpiece so I could walk around with it and talk at the same time. I even bought my best real estate buddy a 25' cord because we talked so much.

Now I can pay $15 a month and have unlimited long distance calls! It used to cost extra to call little adjoining towns called Kensett, Judsonia or Bald Knob. We had to pay so much for long distance that when we traveled we had a little system to let the loved one know we'd arrived safely.

We'd use the operator (remember the operator!! you could get an operator!!) to call person-to-person. We'd ask for a certain person and the person was NOT available. Our code worked. We had told mom, probably the unavailable person, that we'd arrived at our destination.

With the phone system that we have now, things have certainly improved! We could tweet our safe arrival at the destination. But old habits die hard and the daughter missed her call. And I'll bet you one thing! If I call her tomorrow at 10:00 am she'll frantically cry,

"What's wrong! What happened! Why are you calling me this morning!"